My Trek Through Enterprise

I’ve decided to watch season one of Enterprise to see if I feel any different toward this show than I did before, which was rather indifferent. I’ve only ever watched a few episodes, and that was so long ago, I can’t remember any of them.

So, why am I only mentioning season one in the thread title? Well, I tried watching TNG season one late last year/early this year, and I only got through about half of the episodes before I stopped. It just wasn’t clicking for me like it had when I watched it as a kid. That could be because what I’d seen of that show was in its latter seasons when it was better, or at least that’s what I heard. I may try watching season seven to see how it ends later on this year…

Having had my season one experience with TNG, which was far more popular than Enterprise, I’ve decided not to commit myself to more than I can do. So I’m going to watch season one, and if by chance I like it, I’ll start a thread for season two.

I’ll post my thoughts on each episode and maybe rate them using letter grades. I hope anyone interested will join in with their thoughts too.

Season 3 and 4 of Enterprise are markedly different. If you do get bored with Season 1 (it is quite pedestrian) you could always skip to the end of Season 2 and watch from there. Season 3 is one long story arc.

EDIT: But it LOOKS better than Season 1 TNG.. oh does it ever look better

Well, the introductory music was not nearly as irritating as I remember it being. It actually pairs nicely with the series’ scenes it follows during the opening credits. I’ll start off with my first impressions of the characters:

Archer: I liked the scenes with him as a boy and the shuttle footage with Trip. I got my first feel for the character when he’s upset about the Vulcans killing a Klingon warrior by terminating his life support on the Klingon government’s orders. My initial impression wasn’t a good one. I think the ambassador was correct when he said not to push human values off on Klingons (even though Archer’s solution was the right one), and I also didn’t like the way Archer seemed to want to run the show and not hear anyone else out at first. T’Pol says not to be volatile, and he responds by saying that he’s restraining himself from knocking her on her ass. Not good. Then he seemed kind of smug when he got a rise out of the ambassador. I liked him a little more as the episode went on, and that’s a plus.

T’Pol: I haven’t made up my mind yet. I don’t think I’ve seen enough. She seems a little moody, though, but that could be because she didn’t want to be there in the first place. I suspect it has something to do with the superiority complex she seems to have from the Vulcans inhabiting/leading Earth for 90 years (?).

Trip: So far, so good. He seems kind and laid back. That’s nice.

Hoshi: Right now, I’m indifferent. I do like the fact that she seemed able to sense the ship being boarded when no one else did.

The Alien Doctor: I don’t know his name yet, but he’s a little annoying. Maybe it’s his enthusiasm or something; I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Other crew: So far, so good.

Now, I’ll move on to my first impressions of the series:

Well, the first thing that seemed kind of odd was the look of the Klingon that Archer argues to save. He looks like the Klingons in the TNG/DS9 era, and not like the early version that was featured in the TOS era. That was interesting… The invader aliens seemed interesting. I think it was bad that no one immediately went to the patient to guard him and that’s how he got taken with no struggle. I know they were in the room and it was dark, but still…

It didn’t make sense to me why T’Pol told them about Rigel (sp?) 10 just because the Klingon said the word Rigel when he was talking gibberish. If she wanted them to go back the Earth like she said, giving them information so they could get there didn’t make any sense unless she changed her mind. Even still, she said she wasn’t authorized to give that information, but she gave it anyway. Then Archer threatens her for doing that. I don’t know. It just all seemed a little interesting.

The episode ends well enough for me to want to see the next episode to find out how things conclude. I like the part where T’Pol tells Trip to learn when to interfere because the little boy’s mother was actually helping him. It seems that she has taken an interest in helping them after all.

Season 3 and 4 of Enterprise are markedly different. If you do get bored with Season 1 (it is quite pedestrian) you could always skip to the end of Season 2 and watch from there. Season 3 is one long story arc.

EDIT: But it LOOKS better than Season 1 TNG.. oh does it ever look better

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Oh, it does look better. It does. Thanks for the information about seasons 3 and 4. If I feel like it's too weighed down, I'll do that. Then, I'll work on season one of Voyager. That's far off in the distance, though.

TNG: Beyond terrible, embarrassing.
DS9: I found it personally meaningful but really it's a bit clunky.
VOY: Anything with a banjo loses major points. Exciting in it's own way though.

Broken Bow is just a much tighter package than the others IMO.

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Well, I agree with you about TNG. That was not a good start, lol. I love the DS9 opener, but I do have to concede that it wasn't riveting. It's a little slow in parts, so I think I get what you mean by clunky. I never saw the Voyager opening, so it's good that show was more episodic than DS9 for me. And, I can't say anything about ENT's opener until I see the rest of it. So, I'll get back to you on that.

Cut the Temporal Cold War references, turn the Suliban into Orions working for a mysterious Romulan from the future (though we wouldn't know that right away), and have T'Pol remain on Enterprise due to political pressures and not because Archer asked her to stay, and "Broken Bow" would have been close to perfect. Alas...

Welcome to another ENT/potential VOY convert I agree with both teacake and Skywalker. I was meh about Broken Bow first time I saw it and put me off ENT for years. So I'm a late convert. But better late than never. Now I'm a huge fan.

W00t! Welcome. I was pretty taken from the start but there's no doubt that Seasons 3 and 4 are the best, and there is quite a left turn in Season 3.

Broken Bow definitely gets things off with a bang. A lot of things are established at once - Vulcans have been on Earth for a century. And they've kept us back. Now we're going out there. And we might not be as well-prepared as we should be. But we might also be immature enough to shrug off assistance and instead see it as suppression (but we do have some precedent for that).

The alien doctor's name is Phlox. The other crew members are the pilot, Travis Mayweather and the Armory Officer, Malcolm Reed. Plus of course there are incidental crew members but these are the big players.

In Season 1, you'll also run into a Science crewman, Elizabeth Cutler. Other crew members are mainly one-offs.

Welcome to another ENT/potential VOY convert I agree with both teacake and Skywalker. I was meh about Broken Bow first time I saw it and put me off ENT for years. So I'm a late convert. But better late than never. Now I'm a huge fan.

W00t! Welcome. I was pretty taken from the start but there's no doubt that Seasons 3 and 4 are the best, and there is quite a left turn in Season 3.

Broken Bow definitely gets things off with a bang. A lot of things are established at once - Vulcans have been on Earth for a century. And they've kept us back. Now we're going out there. And we might not be as well-prepared as we should be. But we might also be immature enough to shrug off assistance and instead see it as suppression (but we do have some precedent for that).

The alien doctor's name is Phlox. The other crew members are the pilot, Travis Mayweather and the Armory Officer, Malcolm Reed. Plus of course there are incidental crew members but these are the big players.

In Season 1, you'll also run into a Science crewman, Elizabeth Cutler. Other crew members are mainly one-offs.

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Thanks for the names and, consequently, how to spell them. You're the second person that mentioned seasons 3 and 4 are really good. I hope I agree. And thanks for the kind welcome.

Now, on to the second half of the series opener. I liked the Soulabon (sp?) lady they met, and I was sorry to see that she died. Seeing the gel rub-down wasn’t necessary, but I suppose it’s useful for Trip and T’Pol’s bond building. Perhaps if it came later in the series when they are closer and have a clear attraction, it would have been better. And then it doesn’t make sense to do a jelly rub-down with a tank top and pants on either. If they couldn’t have gone in the chamber separately (and naked, the camera didn’t need to show the private areas) to get completely sprayed with the cure because it doesn’t come in aerosol form, then it makes more sense that they would have gone in, again, completely naked (wouldn’t their clothes have been contaminated too, or does it not affect clothing?) to do the rub-down. Okay, enough about the rub-down.

The rescue mission was nice. I’m not sure that Hoshi’s hearing can really be that good, but you never know. This makes me wonder if genetic engineering was something Earth did at that time; I think of Bashir on DS9. I started to feel better about Archer, and then it was the same by the end of the episode. He was smug again, knowing they had information about the Soulabons the Vulcan’s didn’t (outside of T’Pol, whom without they couldn’t have gotten it). That did change when he was along with T’Pol, and I liked the fact that he owned up to his “problems” with her; that was nice. I think they made T’Pol fit in a little too easy and a little too fast, almost like she was a guest character and they didn’t have an entire season to do this. It was a nice twist to have the information that made Klang so important in his DNA structure. I like DS9's opener better, but this was alright. Those are my thoughts.

Now, on to the second half of the series opener. I liked the Soulabon (sp?) lady they met, and I was sorry to see that she died.

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You know who that Suliban lady was? Melinda Clarke. She was the red haired mom on the O.C., she's a major role on Nikita and she played my favorite Firefly character, Nandi, from the episode Heart of Gold. I just LOVE her.

Nikita has gotten so repetitious and silly I've had to give it up in season 2, despite the wonderful Melinda. The main character seems to have zero personality and the plot seems to be devolving into Alias style silliness. I may return to it when I run out of other stuff though as I need action television for the exercise bike.. Farscape isn't cutting it on that front.

I never could watch Farscape. It was a little too different for me. I don't know why, but it was. Everybody I know that likes Science Fiction and has watched it seems to like it though. As bad as it sounds, I like Science Fiction that doesn't seem too different.

I'm on episode 10. I'll take it up again soon, it's just more on the dialogue than I need for working out. It didn't seem different to me, rather very much more of the same. I'm hoping that changes. I am very patient about first seasons